


Heart-Shaped Box

by Arvedui



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 07:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15480462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arvedui/pseuds/Arvedui
Summary: By Rao she wanted to say something, anything. That she couldn’t let Lena hurt like this. That it brought Kara physical pain to have this gap between them. That what she’s been feeling for months was real. Lost, tainted, so confused now with Reign.--The Elevator scene and beyond.A good amount of Angst.





	Heart-Shaped Box

**Author's Note:**

> I know, it's been a few good months since I last posted something. Too many ideas taking me 11 different ways. This was something sitting half finished and called to me this lazy weekend. 
> 
> Me personally, I hated how the writers went about and basically rectonned a season of bond building, but I am a sucker for some angst. This idea is birthed out of that tense elevator scene.
> 
> I wrote this to "Max Richter - Dream 3" playing the background. I recommend putting it on as you give this a read. 
> 
> I had planned to put a dose of smut in this but I felt it would take away from the tone.

 

 

* * *

_"What's a soulmate?"_

_"It's a..Well, it's like a best friend, but more. It's the one person in the world that knows you better than anyone else. It's someone who makes you a better person, well, actually they don't make you a better person...you do that yourself--because they inspire you. A soulmate is someone who you carry with you forever. It's the one person that knew you, and accepted you, and believed in you before anyone else did or when no one else would. And no matter what happens..you'll always love them."_

_-Dawsons creek_

* * *

 

Kara stared forward in the tightly built elevator, purse clasped so closely to her chest. She bounced her head off of the cool metal of the elevator, wishing that the doors would close already and get this over with.

Before Kara could make up her mind and decide to take the stairs an all too familiar voice rose up from across the room as the elevator’s sliding door started to close, “Hold the door!”

Kara could feel her heart dropping into her stomach. A moment of panic, that she should pretend that she didn’t hear  _ her  _ voice. Her body moved on its own accord, ignoring the Kryptonian’s head and stopping the door from shutting. 

If it was possible for Kara’s chest to become tighter than what it already was, it did in that moment when she saw Lena. Green eyes appeared to shine in the low light of the lobby, smile on her lips as she entered into the elevator, “Kara!”

Kara felt a shiver of physical pain run up from the pit of her stomach, wrapping around her heart and holding it in a vice grip. Kara couldn’t respond, Lena already had an arm thrown around Kara’s body and was hugging herself to the taller woman. 

The warmth of Lena’s body, how the two forms formed and fitted together so perfectly ran through the full front of Kara’s mind. How it had taken so long for Kara to get Lena to hug her like this. All the long conversations in Lena’s office, the brunch dates. How hugging her only made want Kara to lean down and hide her face into Lena’s brown hair. 

Did the end justify the means? 

Lena pulled back and ran her eyes over Kara, a small frown coming to her lips, “Are you alright?”

Kara tried to force a smile but she knew it didn’t come out right, it looked far too forced. Quickly dropping into a low frown. A lie was quick to form on Kara’s lips, to pretend everything was fine, that she was okay. It had to be if she kept on saying it over and over and over again. 

But lies was how she got into this mess. Why it felt like her heart had stopped beating, why it felt like the winter winds howled on forever, replacing any warmth she could find on Earth. 

“I’ve been better.” Kara replied honestly. 

There was a look that crossed over Lena’s face, only there for a passing moment. Quick enough for Kara to see but not quick enough for the blonde to understand what it meant. The smile slowly dropped from Lena’s face, pulling back to press the floor she both knew they were going to. 

“I’m afraid I’ve been doing about the same.” Lena replied after a few seconds of quiet. 

Kara’s hands tightened around her purse, knuckles slowly turning white as she knew where this conversation was going. Why in Rao did it had to happen  _ here?  _ In an elevator where she felt so  _ small _ . 

“Alex mentioned you’ve been helping Supergirl with Reign. I asked Supergirl about it, she told me she’s eternally thankful.” 

A painful throb came to Kara’s heart at how Lena snorted as soon as the words were out of Kara’s mouth. 

“ _ Eternally thankful _ . She has a funny way of showing it. I thought me and her…,” Lena trails off much longer than should be normal for someone to collect their thoughts. Kara notices it, Kara  _ feels it _ , “I thought we were friends. But yet, here we are.”

How many had Reign already killed? How many more would she killed if she wasn’t stopped? Kara knew the pain that Kryptonite pain brought first hand. But, but Reign could do so much more evil...How it turned her blood aflame, it tore at her skin, slowly slicing every inch…

“....Using James to try and get at me. To ruin both our friendships. We were  _ friends _ and to go and do  _ this _ .” Kara’s mind tuned back in when Lena twisted over her shoulder to look at Kara. 

Kara’s knuckles had long gone white. She’s unable to look away from Lena, the burning look that slowly eases in Lena’s eyes. There  _ something  _ in those jade eyes, searching across Kara’s face, waiting for Kare to  _ say it _ . Say what this moment meant. 

By Rao she wanted to say something, anything. That she couldn’t let Lena hurt like this. That it brought Kara  _ physical pain _ to have this gap between them. That what she’s been feeling for months was  _ real _ . Lost, tainted, so confused now with Reign. 

There is a moment in back of Kara mind that realizes that Lena  _ knows _ . That she’s always known, and that is why those green eyes look so hurt, why they’re standing so close to each other. 

What was it that Clark warned her about? To not let herself get close to anyone, to keep everyone back with a long arm. She belonged to everyone the moment she put the cape and suit on. She stopped being  _ just _ Kara. 

If there ever was just Kara. 

The way Lena was looking at her, almost as if pleading for her to say something, Kara just wants to be Kara. To sit here in this moment and say everything she felt. To wake up to Lena every morning, limbs interweave together. 

She couldn’t find her breath, not in this tight elevator, not without every inhale she caught the lovely vanilla scent of Lena’s body lotion. Did Lena do this on purpose, plan this moment when Kara’s walls were barely holding together. 

Lena took another step closer to Kara, staring up at Kara. Blue eyes met green over the short distance, mixing together in such familiarity that Kara had to resist the urge to wrap her arms around Lena. All Kara needed to do was  _ say it _ , that if she said it, they could fix the gap. They could fix everything and be together like how they were meant to be. 

Kara opens her mouth to finally speak but it stopped short when the elevator stops. The doors open and the cool air of the floor rushes into the hot elevator. Kara can see the realization playing across Lena’s face, quickly stepping back from the blonde and turning out of the elevator.

* * *

Lena sips slowly from the whiskey, watching the amber liquid splash back and forth in her hand. She glanced over to her phone, the 5 missed calls from James still standing out on her locked screen. 

Sipping from the glass, she grabs her phone and shoves it into one of her drawers in her desk, ignoring how it started buzzing again with yet another call. There were some days where she would actually pick up his calls, pretend to listen as he went on about his day, how much he missed her. 

She would pretend for a little bit that she actually cared about being his ‘girlfriend’. Going through the motions because that’s all she had. The motions of what she was supposed to be doing, what was accepted of her to be doing. 

The entire situation had nothing to do with James. It never had anything to do with James. It had to do with how  _ she _ lied. How  _ she  _ went behind her back. It wasn’t an easy decision to hold Reign the way she did, it was calculated. The only way she stood a chance of surviving and having a chance of understanding the power Reign had over Sam. 

She didn’t do it with glee, she didn’t put on show tunes and click her heels together as she watched Reign,  _ Sam _ ,  _ scream  _ in pain. 

Lena drowned the rest of her glass and poured another, the small buzz she had quickly becoming far stronger than that. 

There came a familiar thud on her balcony, causing Lena to sit up in her seat, lips hovering over the glass of whiskey. She waited with rapid attention, waiting for the sight of free flowing blonde curls and that stupid crimson cloak. 

But it didn’t come in that form. Half of Kara’s face was blanketed the darkness from the midnight sky. She wasn’t wearing the suit nor her glasses, dressed in a usual  _ Kara Danvers _ outfit. Her hair was free, leaving no mistake who she was. 

“I recall saying you weren’t welcomed here anymore.” Lena’s voice was the smallest bit slurred from the whiskey.

Lena had said Supergirl wasn’t welcomed. But both were done with pretending. 

“James was worried. You weren’t picking up his calls.” Kara said, slowly stepping closer to the desk. 

_ James _ . James was nothing, James was the  _ thing _ to attach onto. Yet another barrier to put between her and Kara. Kara had Mon-El, James, James was something to hide behind, to try and  _ bury _ what she thought it felt. 

How many had crossed her  over the years? How many had tried to stab that dagger into her back? None of them mattered, Lena waved them off as if they were nothing. Why did it  _ hurt so much  _ that it was Kara?

By God, she wanted to scream.  _ Scream _ at Kara. Tell her to say it, to tell her. Didn’t Kara know how much this was killing her? How much Kara had changed when she came into her life? That Lena couldn’t go back to how she was, how Kara’s love had ruined her for anyone else. 

Lena twists her face behind the rim of her glass, taking another swig to chase those thoughts away but they stay, they only become louder in her ears. 

“So you came?”

“I told him I would check up on you.”

Maybe James knew. It would make sense that James knew, Lena never could hide it that well, no matter how hard she tried. It was always obvious when the two were together, Super and Luthor forgetting the rest of the world that waited on them. 

_ Why  _ lingered on her lips. Why, why was Kara still trying, why was Kara standing here without her suit or without her glasses all but screaming at Lena that she was Supergirl. 

“You made your choice.” Lena finally got out, daring to look up at Kara with steel coming to her green eyes. 

There’s a look of panic, pure and unshielded that makes Lena’s heart clench. Kara stumbles closer, hands grasping around the back of one of the chairs in front of Lena’s desk, “ _ No. _ No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did.”

“I made a mist…”

“I trusted you!,” That rage finally snaps in the pit of Lena’s stomach. That Luthor anger that Lena tried so hard to keep a grip on, the first time it had surfaced since her Father’s death years ago, “I believed you!”

Lena snaps up from her chair and walks around the desk, right hand grasping the smooth metal, “You made me believe. You didn’t think I knew? That I wouldn’t be able to put together the dolts. I waited and waited, praying that you would  _ tell me _ .”

Lena came to stand in front of Kara, silent tears rolling from her eyes, “I  _ wanted you so badly _ I wanted you to want me like how I wanted you.”

The CEO ends in a deathly whisper, hands balled in front of her body, having to resist the urge to run them along Kara. Having to hold back the thought of how easy it would be to fall into her. Come the morning, when she was sober and her emotions weren’t running high, she would smack herself for telling Kara how she felt.

But in the moment, all she could feel was how her heart’s beating quickened. 

“Lena..”

“You lied. You thought I couldn’t be trusted, you sent James to do your dirty work. How  _ could you? _ After  _ everything _ .”

Kara couldn’t find her words, all she could do was stare into Lena’s eyes. Those same green eyes that she had gotten lost in too many times to count. The same eyes that stirred far too much emotion in the pit of her stomach and heart. 

_ ‘She can’t be trusted.’  _

_ ‘She’s not like them. I looked into her eyes.’  _

The conversation months ago ringed through her head. Back to a different Kara, a Kara that wasn’t stretched so thin. Who could easily define who she was. But now, now she didn’t  _ know _ who she was. Challenged to her core at every step by Reign. 

And there were those green eyes, shining so brightly through the darkness of the office. The same shade that she looked into the first time they met, during every brunch, every dinner date. 

How could Kara atone  for that? For ruining so much. 

“There’s nothing left to be said, Kara. Get out.”

* * *

 

Kara’s blue eyes had long been stained permanently red, bloodshot from hours of crying. She stared at the empty word document on her laptop, the sound and fury of the rest of the office happening around her without passing through her own barrier. 

Her fingers moved of their own accord, switching to her email and scanning through her favorites to find the account she searched. 

Kara rested her long fingers across the keys, a draft email waiting open for her. Taking a deep breath, she started typing. 

_ “I was never good with words. Talking that is. You should know that with how many times you had to shut me up when I got mid ramble or trying to explain something with my hands. Every time I get close to saying something that I need to say it just comes out wrong. It doesn’t come out right and that fear alone keeps me from saying half the things I want to.  _

_ I don’t know if you’re going to open this, maybe you already blocked my email account, maybe you’ll just delete it but there’s so much that still needs to be said. So much that I need to say to you.  _

_ It was wrong of me to lie to you, it was wrong of me to send James to spy on you. It was wrong of me to pass judgement on you when you’re doing everything in your power to save as many as you could.  _

_ And that is one of the many things I love about you, Lena Luthor.  _

_ You can’t undo the past. You can’t go back and change what was said or done. Trust me, I have far too much experience with thinking that. Sometimes...sometimes I feel there’s three different people in my head. There’s Kara Danvers, there’s Supergirl, then there’s Kara Zor-El. That girl I barely remember.  _

_ Danvers would do something one way, Supergirl another. It goes back and forth in my head to the point that I am not even sure who is saying it anymore. It physically makes me hurt some days, so caught up in each little lie I have to say to keep the other separate from the other. Because Kara Danvers can’t be Supergirl and Supergirl can’t be Kara Danvers.  _

_ What is easy or what is right, I don’t know. I really don’t know anymore, Lena. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to save Sam but defeat Reign. I don’t know how to make things right again, if they can ever be right again.  _

_ All I know is that I miss you far too much to take. Whenever I am with you, I...I don’t want to be either Kara Danvers or Supergirl. I just want to be with you. I always wanted you as badly as you wanted me but now that’s gone due to my own actions.  _

_ I don’t want to take away what you feel. I can’t do that and it would be wrong of me to do so. I hurt you so badly, Lena but know that it hurts me as much.  _

_ And yes, I do.  _

_ They say that when two particles are entangled, a change in one will affect the other. At a subatomic level.  _

_ All of my love,  _

_ Kara. “ _

Kara hits send before she could doubt herself, eyes glued to her screen waiting to see if it would bounce back, that her worst fears had come to past and Lena was out of her life. 

She finally takes a breath after a few mintues past, seeing that the email hadn’t bounced back.

* * *

 

Lena didn’t look up from her laptop when Jess peeked her head in, “James is here to see you, Miss Luthor. You have time before your 3pm meeting.”

The Luthor clicks her tongue in the roof of her mouth, suddenly finding herself annoyed. Her fingers hoover up the enter button, finding her courage to apply the smallest bit of pressure to open the email.

“Let him in.”

Lena is good at wearing masks, she’s worn one since the second day she woke up in the Luthor household. She lets that anger, fear, guilt, and need to slip away and instead be replaced with a smile that looks far too clean to be natural. 

James doesn’t return the smile when he enters. With the door shut by Jess, he stands across the wide space in the office, hands clasped in the pockets of his slacks. 

“I’m sorry I missed our lunch, Jam…”

“No you’re not.” Came James’ short and curt reply. 

Lena arches a brow at her ‘boyfriend’, nearly surprised by the strength that appears in his voice. His dark eyes are still on her, watching her closely as he walked towards her desk. 

“I know, I’ve been skipping them often but work just’s…”

“You never skipped your dates with Kara.” James speaks over her again, stopping in front of Lena’s chair. He lifts his hands out of his slacks and crosses his arms over his chest, staring down at Lena with those same soft brown eyes. 

“I…”

“You never ignored her calls. Text messages. Emails. Hell, I’m sure she could use a smoke signal and you’ll figure out a way to send one back.” There’s a touch of bitter humor in James’ voice that sounded far too painful.

The smile lowers from Lena’s face, “It doesn’t matt…”

“It does matter.”

“Stop speaking over me!” Lena finally cracks, snapping swiftly at James who is still staring at her with such a look that she couldn’t place. It annoyed her to no end how he was able to stand here in front of her. 

James raised a brow, snorting the smallest bit, “Oh, now you want to talk. The past few months of me trying to figure out what we were was the wrong time? What was it...busy with work?”

“It’s more than that, James.” Lena loses some of that anger, searching within herself to find that grip on it once more. 

“Do you know how hard it is to get you to talk to me? I’m supposed to be your boyfriend but you have a real funny way of showing it.”

“I talk to you…”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Lena,” James growled hand up to point at Lena with his index finger, “You don’t say anything to me unless I bug you for  _ hours _ beforehand.”

She never had to do that with Kara. Lena  _ wanted  _ to talk to Kara, a guilty feeling shivers through the Luthor’s body, a cold knowing. She would tell Kara everything about her day, how the meetings went, how her new heels were hurting her feet far too much for the price she paid for them. How she wanted one of those donuts from the secret place Kara refused to tell her the name of. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she told James how her day went. 

“I’ve been distant, I know, James. But things have been far from easy here in National City.”

“Why didn’t you ever give me the same security pass you gave to Kara? Why do I have to go through every checkpoint in this building just to say hello to you?” James isn’t finished, that much is obvious. He’s there for a reason, a reason that Lena is slowly realizing. 

Lena doesn’t have an answer for it, she opens her mouth to try and piece together anything but nothing comes out. 

“I’ve been nothing but a stand in for you. Winn tried telling me since the first month. That’s the truth isn’t it? You hid behind me.”

James is getting far too close to home with each new word that rolls off his lip. Lena breaks eye contact and searches for anything else in the room to study, anything to gather her thoughts. 

“You hid behind me because you were, are, afraid of your feelings for Kara.”

Lena’s hands ball underneath the desk, clenching together so tightly to keep the tears from dropping from her eyes. Her arms start to shake from the strain, attempting so hard to  _ keep it all together _ . 

“Maybe you used me to get Kara jealous. Worked pretty well from what Alex has been telling me.”

Lena wants to say that’s not true. That yes, she latched onto James because she was afraid but there was no grand plan. There was no other motive to use James to get to Kara. Those words don’t come out, her throat is tightening, becoming so dry.  

“Then Kara tried using me to get to you. I’ve had enough with it all. Whatever the hell these past months were, it’s over. Figure your feelings out for Kara because she needs you. And you most definitely need her.” 

James didn't look back, he opens the door and slams it shut behind him, making the paintings rattle from the force. 

Lena found herself stuck in her chair, eyes glued to the door where James had just disappeared through. His words still ringing like screams in her ears. Jess peeks her head back in but with one stiff glare from Lena, the PA retreats back outside, already going to cancel her next meetings. 

The Luthor would feel a shiver of guilt later for glaring at Jess but all she could do in that moment was stare forward and replay every single one of James’ words. 

_ ‘You need her.’  _

Her attention turns back to her laptop and to the unopened email she was staring at prior to James’ appearance. There is only a moment of doubt before Lena’s finger clicks the email open, green eyes flying over the paragraphs. 

_ ‘And that is one of the many things I love about you, Lena Luthor.’ _

Lena refuses to urge to grab her purse and race across town. To race to Kara’s door and throw her arms around the blonde and tell her everything she feels. 

It boils and bubbles around the pit of her stomach. The email only makes it worse, makes the back and forth in Lena’s head worse, until the point now it felt like she was being split in two. 

Did Kara not see why Lena had been forced to take such measures against Sam? Did she think she  _ enjoyed  _ watching one of her close friends be eaten away by Reign?

Lena doesn’t hear the office doors opening and Jess slipping quietly into the room, leather bound binder clasped to her chest. Lena doesn’t realize that there’s something else in the room until Jess gently placed the binder down in the center of the desk. 

Green eyes snap up to catch Jess’ quiet stare. The PA interlaces her fingers in front of her body and speaks in a gentle tone, “You shouldn’t end it.”

A part of Lena wants to be surprised that Jess knew just what kind of email Lena was reading. 

A certain hole had been left in the CEO officer since the bubbling blonde reporter had stopped making her daily visits. A hole that hung that worst over the CEO herself. 

“I don’t know what happened and it’s not really my business, Lena, but if she’s trying to apologize and  _ fix _ it. That has to mean something.”

Lena wonders for a moment how much Jess does know. How much the PA had picked up through every interaction with Kara. How every late night, Jess was always not that far off. Was Lena that far more obvious with how she felt than she thought? 

There’s a shiver of realization that she is. Kara had changed that. Kara had showed her it wasn’t a sign of weakness to  _ feel _ something. To let people know what she was feeling, to not bottle it up inside of her and only let it out in private. 

“If the positions were switched, how quickly would she accept your apology.”

Nothing is easy as that, nothing is as easy as blunt advice given to by a friend in an honest conversation. Lena had found that out far to long ago. Lena feels like she needs to cry, to drink, to scream, to slam her fists into drywall until her hands bled. She feels the need to be somewhere, out in public, another face in the crowd. Locked away in her bedroom with the lights off and the blanket thrown over. 

How many faces had ruined their friendships with her? Every single time, Lena blinking through them all, only feeling a need to get it over with. Could she do that to Kara? To erase her from her life, after everything they had shared. To pretend she had never known the blonde like how she did. 

The thought of never seeing Kara again slipped through her ribs like a cold steel knife, slowly slicing into her heart and making it bleed red. 

They had to fix this, they had to figure a way out. 

“Thank you, Jess. That’ll be all for today.” Lena’s voice is close to breaking, she can hear it. She doesn’t dare to look up from her laptop screen, knowing that she was so close to tears that the look on Jess’ face would make the careful hold break. 

She’s writing a response far too fast than she wanted to. The easy response it to delete it and ignore it. Or send a short reply saying don't speak to her. But that command doesn’t fall down to her fingers, her hands seem to move on their own command. 

_ “Some days all I can be is angry. Angry at you, angry at the world, angry at my Brother, angry at Reign. Angry at myself.  _

_ I trusted you. I trusted you far more than I had ever trusted anyone before. Above everything else, you showed me I could trust myself. You stood with me against Lillian, against the press, against the DEO, even your sister.  _

_ I don’t understand how you couldn’t trust me. I can understand why you were hurt, I should’ve told you about the kryptonite, I should’ve told you where I was keeping Reign. But sometimes, the right thing isn’t the good way. I watched you be beaten bloody by her too many times, Kara. Each time you slower to get up.  _

_ I couldn’t let the worst come to past. I couldn’t let her hurt you.  _

_ Did you never see what you did to me Kara? How you came into my life and changed everything? It feels so odd to finally say it to you, how you changed me.  _

_ And none of it seems to matter anymore.  _

_ Eternally Yours,  _

_ Lena” _

* * *

 

It’s a mighty storm that rages on over National City. A freak rainstorm that had rolled in earlier that morning and wasn’t going to let up all week according to the news. Another surge coming every few hours to drench the city. 

The power had long gone out in Kara’s apartment, but she finds herself not minding the darkness for once. She doesn’t mind the pouring rain storm, the sounds of thunder rolling off in the distance. Sitting in the dark, she can be anyone, she can be Kara Danvers, Supergirl. 

Kara Zor-El. 

It brings a far too painful throb to her heart. She had been on Earth for a better part of a decade now. But no matter how much she moved on, every year it all came back to her on this night. The night. 

The anniversary of Krypton’s destruction, the anniversary of Kara being sent away, the anniversary of Kara Zor-El being replaced. 

Her eyes were stained red with her now dried tears. The only sound coming to her was the thudding of the thunder in the distance and how the tennis ball in her hand bounced against the wall with each light throw. 

She needs to do something with her hands. Another anxious act she did to pretend she was fine. To keep down the boiling feelings that she tried so hard to control, to keep hidden behind that crimson cloak. 

But in the dark, there’s no colors. There’s nothing to hide behind, there’s no need to hid. She knows well fully the powers this yellow sun had on her, but what of the moon. What of the pale white moon that was covered by the thick dark storm clouds. Did it bring out her weakness? Did it make her mortal while the sun made her a goddess? 

Of the darkness that comes with it. That brings out the parts of Kara that she doesn’t want to admit that is there. That if she does admit it's there, that she isn’t just fine. That she isn’t okay. Kara feels so  _ tired _ , down to her bones, down to her blood. Stretched so thinly, pulled in every direction, changed so much that she doesn’t know who was staring back at her in the mirror. 

Even the flashing of thunder has stopped, giving a pause for the rain to fall heavier over the city. Wind slamming into her window, making the storm seem all that much more alive outside. Kara curls her hand around the ball and squeezes, burying her face into her other hand. 

Kara knows she needs to be with someone. She hadn’t spent this night alone in years. Always with Alex, always with the Danvers. But Alex is with Ruby, and it would be far too unfair for Kara to put this all on Alex when she too was trying to keep herself together. 

The sound of a soft knock coming from her front door breaks Kara from her moment. Her head snaps up with wide blue eyes. She could feel her heart roaring within the contents of her chest, filling every single one of her senses as the beating only grew and grew. 

It’s the first time she’s  _ felt  _ something in weeks. There’s another heart beat on the other side of the door, a heartbeat she knows. A heartbeat that moves in rhythm to her own. Every bubble of emotion. 

Lena looked soaked to the bone. Wet hair sticking to her skull, coat covered and drenched in water. The CEO hugged her purse as close as she could to her body as the door opened and she finally met Kara’s eyes for the first time in weeks since their last meeting. 

There is a silence that pulls between them, Kara standing in the doorway with her eyes wide. Lena looking up from underneath her eyelashes at Kara, not quite knowing why she was here, why she had decided to go for a drive. Why her car had decided to break right next to Kara’s home. Why a storm of a century had decided to blow in meaning there was only  _ one _ place she could go. 

Kara’s mouth finally shuts, her body moving of its own accord. Stepping to the side and keeping the door opened enough to Lena step inside of the dark apartment. There’s not the usual warmth that rolls of Kara’s body in quiet rolls, even the Kryptonian appeared affected by the cold. 

“Your power is out too?” Lena asked softly, turning around to look up at Kara through the darkness. 

It was hard to make out most of Lena’s features through the dark, but those green eyes peeked out through the blackness that surrounded them like swirls. 

“Yeah.” Kara’s voice sounds far too raspy than usual, the crying leaving her voice strained, “You should change out of your wet clothes. Borrow whatever.”

Lena looks for a moment she was going to say something, making the dull pain in Kara’s heart burn for long painful second until the Luthor nods her head slowly and turns to where she knows where Kara’s bedroom is. 

When Lena comes back out, dressed in a pair of Kara’s flannel pj bottoms and a too big long sleeved shirt, the living room finally as a source of light. A single tall burning candle placed on the coffee table in front of the couch that stands in the middle of the apartment. 

Lena is finally able to see how strained Kara’s face does look. She had never known the Kryptonian to look tired, worn down. But with only the light flickering of the candle, with each wave, she could see it plainly over Kara’s body.

How her shoulders were slumped, the deep stress lines that run over her face, the red bloodshot eyes. Those strained tired eyes peek up when Lena comes back into view, lingering on her face as it dips down over the pick of clothes. 

“I..I hope you don’t mind. I went for a drive and I blew out a tire a block over from here.” Lena feels herself growing far too nervous underneath those blue eyes. Approaching closer to the couch and playing with the long sleeves of the shirt. 

“It’s fine, Lena.” Kara says softly, trying her best to force a smile to her lips. 

The smile comes out poorly and she knows Lena can see it. The CEO takes her spot on the other side of the couch, trying to leave as much room between the two as possible. She runs her pale fingers through her hair, trying her best to brush down the wet hair. 

“Do you want a brush?” Kara asks, turning her head to Lena. 

“No, it’s fine. Thank you.”

Kara falls silent again, turning her eyes from Lena to watch the flickering flame of the candle. The silence was painful between the two women, the wide open room feeling far too cramped, the air far too heavy. 

The Kryptonian takes the ball she was playing with before. Running her fingers over the material of it, trying to keep her hands busy as well as she could. 

“I am sorry about you and James.” Kara whispers out again, not turning her head to make eye contact with Lena. 

The sigh that comes from Lena is deep, her green eyes peeking out to glance at the blonde. Her entire back tensed with her blue eyes fixed on the ball in her hands. Her thumbs brush over the worn green fuzz, over and over and over again. As if she’s been spending every moment of her free time with it in her hands. 

The air in the room is still so heavy between them. The unsaid, the need to talk rising stronger with each strike of the thunder outside. 

“Tell me about Krypton.” Lena finally says, ignoring what Kara had said and turning her head fully to study the side of Kara’s face. 

Kara releases as hushed painful breath from her mouth. The sudden need to cry again climbing up in the bit of her stomach and heart. What could she say about Krypton, all those memories that she tried so hard to erase, belonging to a woman that was long gone. 

“You would’ve liked the Golden Spire. It was the Council Chambers and grand library of the planet. A source of knowledge with texts from every Solar System, to the dawn of time. I spent so many days getting lost there.”

Lena tucks her legs underneath her body as she listens to Kara speak. The smallest of grin appearing through the darkness, Lena could picture an over excited and hyper Kara rushing through tall dusty shelves of books, “Why did they name it the Golden Spire?”

“No matter where the sun hit it, the metal of the tower would shine gold. It touched all the way to the clouds and even beyond. It stood at what Krypton was.” Kara trailed off, shutting her eyes as she remembered the last years of Krypton. 

“What it was?”

“It changed. I was barely a child but I even saw it. My parents tried to keep me from it, but order had to be kept. Imagine turning on the news tomorrow and the headline being that Earth will explode in a year. Imagine the chaos.” 

There's a memory she doesn’t want to remember. The golden arch that lead up to the steps of the Golden Spire. How the wind gently made the bodies sway back and forth in the wind. The rioting that was put down by the Council and its Jusditors without mercy. 

The neat ranks of the soldiers as they closed in, the slamming of boots. The screams…

_ ‘It is the will of the Council!’  _ Her Mother’s screaming voiced echoed violently through her ears. 

“I…”

“Choices were made in the last year. Choices of a doomed people on a doomed planet. My people, my planet.”

Lena found herself sliding over the couch, nudging closer to Kara as she spoke, eyes fixed on the side profile of the Kryptonian as her blue eyes came focused on the coffee table in front of her. 

“It's the anniversary, tonight.” Kara finishes thought with a low breath, daring to look to the side to catch Lena’s steady stare. 

She knows she shouldn’t, not with everything still left unsaid, with too much to still figure out. But Lena’s heart takes control of her body, overriding the cool mind. Her pale hand reaches for Kara’s lap and takes one of those tanned hands into her own. 

She wonders if it’s fate, if it’s something more that had deemed Lena to be here. To break down so close to Kara’s home on the same day of Krypton’s destruction.

Kara is cold to the touch, that usually unearthly warm skin gone, replaced now with the chill of the storm that raged on outside. But Lena’s hand attracts her attention, Kara lets the ball drop and fall to the floor, turning her upper body to face Lena’s eyes. 

“Do...do you not want to talk about it?” Lena asks in a low whisper that matches the same tone Kara’s voice is in. 

Kara has to hold back the urge to laugh. To  _ not _ talk about, to not talk about Krypton. Kara is sure Lena is the first person she had ever met to ask her that. Alex was the only person who she ever spoke at real length about Krypton, about her life before. But even she had never asked that question at any point through all the years. 

“No, I don’t. But you deserve the truth.”

Lena only nods, tucking behind strands of wet hair behind her ear allowing Kara the silence to find her thoughts. 

“I wanted to tell you. It wasn’t because you were a Luthor, it wasn’t because I couldn’t trust you,” Kara pauses for a moment, looking down at her and Lena’s connected hands, “It was because I was selfish. Because I’m still selfish.” 

“I..I don’t follow.” Lena’s eyes focuses on Kara’s face, eyebrows fumbling together in the way she does when trying to figure out a solution to a problem. 

“I think I always knew that you knew. Deep down, below everything. I wanted this, I wanted you, I wanted to keep you separate from everything else. A place where I could go when I didn’t want to be Supergirl or Kara Danvers. Where I just wanted to be  _ me. _ ” Kara explains on, her eyes being forced to drop from Lena’s and turning to look back at the single burning candle. 

“So I didn’t tell you but you knew. And I went along with it as long as I could. Trying to keep it all in, trying to keep it together. So hard to keep it  _ together _ .” Kara’s voice cracks. She twists her eyes shut as a fresh set of tears wants to drop. She needs to get this out, she needs to make this right for Lena, to hopefully give her the point of view to make her understand why Kara didn’t tell her. 

“I should’ve told you about Sam.” Lena whispers softly once silence had fallen after Kara finished speaking, “I am selfish too. I saw how you struggled against her, I love Sam, but I love you more, Kara. If there was a ch...”

“I am sorry,” Kara gets out with a broken sob, tears filling her eyes and fall down the curves of her cheeks, “I am so sorry.”

Lena doesn’t think, watching Kara’s head snap back to hers, seeing the pain that bubbled through every one of her Kara’s nerves, Lena acts. She tears her hand from Kara’s embrace and grasps the front of the blonde’s shirt, slamming their lips together. 

Kara is caught off guard, sending herself tumbling forward into Lena’s lips. Using the grasp of Kara’s shirt, Lena pulled her ontop of her as she laid down onto the couch.  Kara’s lips tasted salty from her tears but Lena moaned at the taste. Moaned at the feel of Kara’s weight resting above her. How their bodies fitted together with careful purposeful ease. 

The kiss is gentle, a mere brushing of lips. Lena reacts her lips after a few mere seconds, staring up at Kara’s face through the darkness. Kara wiggled her body, planting her elbows on either side of Lena’s head to make herself more comfortable. 

Lena’s hand rubs into the back of Kara’s neck, moving around to curl around her cheek, thumb brushing over the outline of her cheekbone. She wiped away the last stray tear that had yet to dry on her cheek. Her thumb brushed up, to trace over the small scar on Kara’s forehead, the scar that Lena always wondered how she got. 

Kara leans her face into the palm of Lena’s hand, drawing from the warmth that comes from the Luthor. She sighs heavily and settles fully into Lena’s warm embrace. Limbs becoming entangled together like so much of themselves. 

“What do you know about quantum entanglement?” Lena warm breath whispers over Kara’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> If there's a want, I might write a second part.


End file.
